Voyage to the Rock

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Viking Voyagers

The first Europeans known
definitely to set foot in Newfoundland were the Norse. Beginning
in the eighth century, they burst out of their cultural homeland
in Scandinavia (particularly Norway) in a series of expansionist
waves of migration triggered by unknown causes -- possibly
overpopulation, possibly political unrest. Their notorious war
galleys, known as "longships," were fast and
maneuverable, perfect for swift hit-and-run raids in the
sheltered seas and waterways of Europe. Going on such raiding
expeditions was known as going "a-Viking," and it was
by that name that the Norsemen became feared throughout Europe.

Yet the Norse who came to Newfoundland were not fierce raiders in
search of pillage and plunder. The Norse appearance here was the
final step in a relatively peaceful expansion of livestock
farmers across the North Atlantic, taking in parts of the British
Isles, Iceland, Greenland, and finally Vinland.

Iceland, discovered by the
Norse in 860, appears to have been settled by ca. 874 and was
fully occupied by 930. Indeed, the occupation of Iceland
was so rapid that the island soon felt the
pressures of overpopulation. By 975 a major famine had
struck, so that interest in finding new lands for expansion
remained strong. Rumours of lands to the west, possibly fed by
earlier Irish voyages, led to the discovery of Greenland in 982
by Erik the Red. Three years later, a major colonizing expedition
of several hundred people was organized in Iceland and sailed to
Greenland.

The Norse Settle in Greenland

Eventually around 300 farmsteads
were established in southeastern Greenland, clustered into two
settlements. The oldest was the Eastern Settlement. The more
suitable of the two for livestock farming, it was the most
heavily populated region, with about 3,000-4,500 people.

Though their culture was a
violent one by our own standards and blood feuds were common, the
Greenland colonists were not bloodthirsty sea-raiders. Nor were
their vessels the classic "longships" used by Vikings
in the sheltered waters of Europe on their raiding expeditions.
In the North Atlantic, the Norse used stout, sea-worthy vessels
known as "knarrs." Although there were limits to how
much they could carry, they were more suited for carrying cargo.
The knarr was also open to the elements and, though driven by a
sail, it was small enough to be rowed.

The people of Iceland and
Greenland supported themselves through livestock farming and
trading. The region was not suited to growing grain, and so
the raising of sheep and goats dominated. Stock-raising of this type, together with
the impact of substantial numbers of people moving into Iceland
and Greenland, caused environmental degradation.
Trees were felled to heat homes and smelt iron, and turf was stripped
from the thin soils. The result was erosion and soil damage.
To make matters worse, after 1250 AD, a period of
climatic cooling known as the "Little Ice Age" began,
causing the agricultural economy of the region to deteriorate
dramatically.

Vinland

It is necessary to explain all
these developments if we are to understand why the Norse failed
to colonize North America successfully, for it was from these
Greenland settlements, and not the Norse homeland in Europe, that
the Norse explorers of North America came, around the year 1000.

According to the sagas, a merchant-shipowner named
Bjarni was making his way from Iceland to Greenland
in 986 AD when he was blown off course by a severe storm. When
the storm ended, he found himself off an unfamiliar shore. He
recognized that this was not his intended landfall. The land was
too forested, and he was too far south. Bjarni therefore
headed north, arriving in Greenland about a week later. During
the return trip, he noted a changing landscape as he
progressed north, from forested hills, to a flat, heavily
forested coastline, to glaciated mountains.

This had not
been an intentional voyage of discovery, nor was Bjarni
interested in following through on his discovery. As a merchant,
he was interested primarily in trading with established
communities, not investing in risky and speculative efforts to
establish new ones.

The Greenland colonists were not
interested in immediately exploiting the new discovery, for they
had just recently arrived in Greenland. Because they were still
busy establishing themselves, Bjarni's
voyage did not inspire a return trip for nearly a decade. Then
Leif, the son of Erik the Red, retraced Bjarni's route in reverse.
He passed a land of rock and ice, which he called Helluland - probably
Baffin Island - and then a country that was flat and wooded, which he
called Markland
This was probably part of southern Labrador.
He eventually reached a land which the sagas describe as a land of
grassy meadows, with rivers full of salmon, and enough other resources
to encourage over-wintering. Leif gave this land
the name "Vinland." The men proceeded to build houses
in typical Greenland Norse fashion, with sod-walls and peaked
roofs of timber and sod. When Leif and his crew returned to
Greenland, their reports of this new land aroused interest in
further exploration.

Was Vinland in Newfoundland?

Where was Vinland? The location
is difficult to determine because the details provided in the
sagas often seem to conflict. The sailing directions suggest
Newfoundland, but descriptions of lush vegetation, including
grain and self-sown wheat, together with the discovery at L'Anse
aux Meadows of butternuts (which have never grown further north
than New Brunswick) suggest a more southerly location.

The
discovery of the Norse habitation at L'Anse aux Meadows gave
powerful support for those who believed that Vinland was in
Newfoundland. Yet L'Anse aux Meadows appears to have been a small
settlement of about eight buildings and no more than 75
people, mostly sailors, carpenters, blacksmiths, hired hands and
perhaps even serfs or slaves. It is probable therefore that the
settlement was a base camp for repairing and maintaining Norse
ships. One
bloomery and one smithy have been identified, where local
bog iron was apparently smelted into "sponge iron,"
then subsequently purified and made into nails, rivets, and other
iron work. The settlement was probably also a base camp for
expeditions further south. During the summer, possibly two-thirds
of the camp would have been off exploring as far south as the
Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Some women must have been present --
artifacts found there, such as a spindle whorle, bone needle, and
a small whetstone for sharpening, were a typical part of a Norse
woman's everyday possessions.

The
consensus among scholars today (1997) is that "Vinland" was
not a specific site, but a region which included
Newfoundland and extended south into the Gulf of St. Lawrence as
far as Nova Scotia and coastal New Brunswick.

"Where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them." - Matthew 18:20
The tiny community of L'Anse aux Meadows at the far northern tip
of Newfoundland is distinguished among Canadian heritage sites as the
oldest European settlement in Canada. Scarcely a dozen buildings remain
of this Viking settlement, constructed over one thousand years ago by a
group of Scandinavian settlers who appeared ready to make a new home in
the frigid northlands of what would later become Canada.
It is almost certain that the tiny group was led by a Viking named
Karlsefni, an associate of Leif Erikson (called Leif the Lucky, for his
many extraordinary successes), one of the first Norsemen to accept
baptism within a largely pagan culture. By the time these settlers
arrived in Canada, Christianity and paganism were living side by side in
northern Europe, and had not yet had the opportunity to discover the
differences which would inevitably lead to conflict. The Norse were a
pragmatic lot, whose religious zeal was usually focused on doing
whatever it took to survive and to win. And the Christian God was the
ultimate Victor...We know that the Norse seafaring parties who traveled to North
America contained mixed crews of Thor-worshipers and Christians (Erikson
himself started out as the former, and ended up, rather early in life,
as the latter). We also know that one of the parties of settlers his
adventures produced the first Canadian-born child of European
extraction, a boy named Snorri, whose grandchildren included three
bishops right around the time of the Great Schism (news of which
traveled very slowly to Viking lands, in any case).Perhaps here we have a glimpse of the first Christian community in
Canada: a tiny one, to be sure, and not organized as far as the Church
is concerned. Their firstborn child was almost certainly baptized,
although probably back in the old country, once his parents joined their
companions and fled from the North American natives who never seemed to
take a liking to the Norse tendency to attack on sight. Outnumbered,
far from home, and cold (yes, even Vikings get cold), it was perhaps
inevitable that the first Orthodox settlement in Canada was not to last...
It is almost certain that no Orthodox priest was present at the
first settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows. Yet archaeological digs further
northwest on Baffin Island present an interesting possibility. A
thirteenth-century Thule native site produced an intriguing relic: a
tiny carved figure dressed in European clothing, with evidence of a cape
over the shoulders, and a long cloth draped around the neck, hanging
down to the feet - and marked with a cross. Robert McGhee, who
specializes in Arctic archaeology at the Canadian Museum of
Civilization, suggests this figure shows a crusader who served as a
retainer for a viking captain. This is based on the theory that
Christian clergy in northern Europe did not wear pectoral crosses until a
much later period.Yet we know both Saints Cuthbert and Adamnan, saints of the
Orthodox west, both wore such crosses, as we can see today on display at
the cathedral in Durham, in the north of England. It seems more
difficult to believe that a crusader would have traveled thousands of
miles with pagan Vikings, rather than a Christian priestmonk, seeking
out mission territory, or more likely, seeking a remote monastic home,
as we know the Celts did in Greenland centuries before. Whether this
figure represented an Orthodox priest or a cleric of the western Latins
after the Schism, we'll likely never know.

But for Orthodox Christians in Canada, the rubble at L'Anse aux
Meadows and the carving from Baffin Island remind us that a minute
Orthodox presence likely existed in Canada long before two world wars,
and long before the Reformation. These facts confirm that the first
Christians to set foot on our soil were from what is sometimes
erroneously called the "undivided Church" - the Orthodox Church before
the breaking away of Rome. And our brother Leif the Lucky, along with
his kinsmen at L'Anse aux Meadows - and perhaps even a lone priestmonk
on Baffin island, were what one might think of as founding members of
the first Orthodox community in Canada - whether they knew it, or not.